


Game of Cat and... bird?

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Halloween, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16467785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Nott manages to bribe Caleb into coming to the Halloween costume-mask party at the bar.Caleb doesn't usually make impulse decisions, but he is dressed as a cat, he supposes it's only right to emulate the behaviour.





	Game of Cat and... bird?

“I am not so sure about this.” Caleb winces as the headband scratches awkwardly at his scalp. Nott smooths his hair down a little with a soft cooing noise.

“It means a lot that you’re coming for me.” She tells him, partially because it’s true, partially because it will help to soothe him and convince him to come with her. It works; Caleb lets out a soft sigh, and Nott knows she has won.

“Who else is coming?” he asks, and hears Nott open her mouth before adding, “That I know.”

“Well,” Nott shuffles behind him, “A lot of the carnival are going, Jester says.”

“ _That I know._ ” Caleb repeats to emphasise, and feels Nott slip down from behind him. She appears in the edge of his vision a moment later, skittering to her own costume, laid out on the edge of the sofa,

“Beau? And- um- you know Jester?”

“Vaguely.” Caleb sort of agrees. He fiddles with the sleeves of the suit, the fur is ticklish and somewhat uncomfortable and the whole thing is _very_ tight.

“Jester’s going to be there too!” Nott grins at him as she works on shucking her way out of her hoodie, “And Yasha, and Fjord, and Clay, and-”

“Alright, that’s enough names.” Caleb stops her runaway train before it speeds off of the track. Nott flashes him an apologetic look and begins to change. Her bat wings are spread on the table, away from the two of them, good and safe.

“What is Beau dressing as? And Jester?”

“Beau’s going as a vampire.” Nott rolls her eyes, “And Jester’s aiming for that candy gore look. With the bright pink fake blood and all of the lollipops?”

“Ah.” Caleb gives in the tone of understanding. He’s seen such things around.  
Caleb himself is going relatively simple- he’s a black cat! Because the store didn’t have ginger tabby, much to both Caleb _and_ Frumpkin’s disgust.

Frumpkin, who is currently sat atop Caleb’s closed laptop, purring happily in his little cat ball.

Nott shimmies into the bat rectangle and pulls the gloves on right, beaming bright at her own costume.

“Are you ready for the wings?” Caleb asks her, and she nods so hard her hair comes loose a little,  
  
“Yeah! Help?”

He moves to take them from the table and holds them out, holds them so that Nott can slip an arm into the loops, and then the other, and then she’s flapping the drapey little wings to test them out, still beaming.

“They’re perfect!”  
  
“ _Gut,_ ” He had been worried that he had ordered the wrong size, “Do not forget your mask, _Liebling._ ”

She scuttles to the bedroom to collect both of their masks. They match, for the night.

The masks are really the only reason Caleb isn’t backing out in fear- everyone will be wearing one, like a masquerade ball. Caleb will blend in, in his near-skintight catsuit and his velour mask and his kitty ears. Nott comes back and hands his mask to him, he ties it carefully around his face,

“I’m ready.” he tells her, because she likes him to announce it. She pulls the ribbon of her own mask, testing the tightness. She seems to find it satisfactory, because she turns to him beaming,

“Let’s go!”

 

The bar is well-decorated for halloween. There’s pumpkins all around, carved in various spooky-looking faces, filled with LED candles. The music is loud and dancey and Caleb wants to press closer to Nott, but she’s very small, he would only trip her.

He hopes that they find Beau soon.

 

Caleb, decidedly, does not like this.

 

It’s too loud and the lights are too much and it’s so hot and then Beau has an arm around his shoulder and pulls him out into the smoking garden.

“Y’alright?” she seems genuinely concerned and Caleb manages a hint of a smile for her,

“More than I was expecting.” he gives in explanation, and she nods sagely,

“Wanna smoke?” she offers the pack she keeps on hand for him, but he shakes his head,  
  
“Not now. Thank you- I just- I will take a few minutes.”

“Yeah, that’s chill. Hey- this is Yasha,” She gestures toward a corner, and Caleb- how he missed her, he’ll never know. She’s _huge,_ tall and thick shouldered and well-muscled.   
Caleb can see why Beau likes her- and he knows that Beau likes her by the expression the monk wears, staring at Yasha like she’s the full moon.

“Hi.” Yasha says quietly, carefully flicking her cigarette so the ashes fall into one of the little bins.  
  
“ _Hallo._ ”  
  
“Yash, this is Caleb, he’s Nott’s flatmate.”   
  
“Oh.” Yasha blinks, like she’s struggling for the right words to use, “Nice to meet you.”

Yasha is made up to look like a skeleton, her hair tied back and her face half-covered by a skull-shaped mask. Behind the eyeholes, Caleb can see dual-coloured eyes.

“Nice to meet you.” He echoes back at her, and that’s where they finish their conversation.

 

Beau buys Caleb a drink. It helps to ease him into the environment, she reasons, and he stays close to her when they move in but he doesn’t feel that pressure anymore. On one side, he has Beau, on the other, Yasha. It seems the taller woman has taken it upon herself to care for Caleb. Not in the way that Beau does, with the drink and the dragging and the pressing to his side, but keeping her eye on him instead.

“This is our table.” Beau gestures to a group. Nott is amongst them, chattering animatedly to Jester, and there’s a good handful of other folk, too. A tall firbolg that Caleb assumes is Clay, a half-orc that he’d take for Fjord, and a- another tiefling. He’s sure that Nott has mentioned another tiefling before, but he doesn’t remember their name.

They look up, when Caleb and his bodyguards approach, their eyes slipping from Fjord to Yasha to Caleb.  
A lazy smile spreads across their face, their red eyes seem to shine in the dim light, their face hidden behind their odd bird-like mask.  
They scooch off of Fjord’s lap to edge around the table, pausing at Yasha’s side to kiss her cheek.  
Yasha and Beau slip in to sit beside Fjord, and the mystery tiefling takes Yasha’s place by Caleb.   
  
“Hell- _oh_ there, nobody warned me that we’d have a God in our midst this evening.”

It’s such a bad attempt at flirting, but Caleb is flustered regardless, and his blush and stammer only strengthen when the tiefling’s fingers graze his arm and glide up to his hand, where they take the cocktail from his loose grasp and raise it to take a sip for themself. They let out a quiet, humming moan and Caleb’s knees nearly buckle beneath him.  
  
“Sex on the beach.” They observe, rather astutely- it is the cocktail that Beau has ordered for him, after all.   
  
“ _Ja,_ ” Caleb tries around the dry lump in his throat, “It- it is my favourite.”

“You’re a fan of sex on the beach?” The tiefling’s hairline shifts, they may have raised their eyebrows but Caleb can’t tell with the mask in the way.

They’re dressed as a peacock, with glittery, glimmering tail feathers trailing behind them, wearing a ridiculous patterned high-neck with no sleeves. And a _lot_ of body glitter. Their tattoos are stark against their skin on their bared arms, their scars the same, littering the expanse of them visible to the world.

“I like to get drunk.” Caleb rebukes. The tiefling’s smile widens a little,  
  
“Well, sweetheart, when you’re done with this one,” and they slip the drink back into his shaking hand, “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”   
  
Caleb swallows hard.

“That would be nice.”

“Good.” The tiefling takes a step back and Caleb, sweating, shaking, enamoured, realises just how close they had been. Near chest-to-chest, there couldn’t have been more than an inch or two between their noses.

They sit, and offer Caleb a spot beside them that he takes with his breathing still thick in his throat.

  


It surprises nobody that Caleb and his mystery tiefling end up in the corner of the smoking garden, kissing fiercely despite the awkward way they have to angle it so the tiefling’s mask doesn’t take Caleb’s eye out.

“Would it not be easier without the mask?” his mystery tiefling asks when, for the third time, they have to draw apart so that they don’t injure their neck.

“ _Ja,_ ” Caleb agrees, his fingers laced at the back of their neck, “But- we are not supposed to, here. And I do not even know your name.”

“If you’d like to take me home, I’m sure I can solve both of those problems.”

It comes out like a purr and Caleb shivers in his skin, wishing avidly that they had some kind of decent shirt to fist his hands in and pull. He’s tried to scrabble at the silky skintight material, but to no avail.

“ _Ja._ ” Caleb gasps, and pulls them in for one more, awkward kiss before they break apart, and Caleb finds their fingers lacing with his at his own hip, doesn’t even remember when he dropped his hands from their neck.

“Let’s go.” They say, quiet against his cheek and he shivers again and obliges.

 

They let Nott know where they’re going as they leave, and she waves them off airily, distracted by her drinking contest with Beau. Caleb does not expect her home tonight- more likely, she will stay with Jester and sleep off the booze.

That’s fine.

Works for Caleb.

 

They’re halfway down the street to Caleb’s apartment when he feels his tiefling shift against his shoulder. The moon is full and bright above their heads, the air is cold, Caleb’s breath comes in steaming little clouds whenever he exhales.

“Is everything alright?” He asks them, turns to find their free hand working at the ribbon of their mask,  
  
“Yeah! Just… can’t get it undone.”

“Let me.” Caleb slips his hand from theirs so that he can untie the ribbon blind, he wants to be looking at their face when the mask comes off, and he finds their hands at the back of his own head,  
  
“Can I?”   
  
“You can.”

The knots of their mask loosen, Caleb holds the edges between his hands as he waits for them to catch up. Eventually, they manage to loosen his ribbon, too.  
  
“Ready?” They ask, and their voice is gentle. Caleb nods, and they nod back, “Three. Two…”

They pull the masks away on _one._    
Caleb’s mystery tiefling is the most beautiful person he has ever seen. Their cheekbones are high and pretty and their nose is strong and noble and Caleb’s odd little crush flourishes in his chest. It occurs to him that this might be someone that he could fall in love with, given the time, the space, the patience.

“You’re very handsome.” It is the tiefling that speaks first, Caleb’s mask in one hand at his shoulder, the other tracing the shape of Caleb’s lips with their fingertips, drifting up to smooth along his cheekbone.   
  
“You are very pretty.” Caleb manages in response, and his tiefling gives a warm, throaty chuckle before they duck in and kiss him. They hum gently, pleased at the new freedom.

“Much better.” they observe when they draw away, and Caleb fights not to chase their lips,  
  
“You still haven’t told me your name.” Caleb points out, and his heart softens at their smile,   
  
“Neither have you.”

Caleb ponders this, for a moment,  
  
“Caleb Widogast.” He tells them, and punctuated the following pause with a kiss that lazily stretches, one of Caleb’s arms finds its way around their waist. When Caleb draws back for air, they speak,   
  
“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” they give, “Molly to my friends.”

Caleb presses back to kiss them again.


End file.
